Sundry assessments was voted from time to, time, the last vote being in May, 1852, amounting in all to 75 per cent. upon the subscriptions, but they were rescinded in July, 1858, and a new series of assessments were afterwards made which the Committee understand were as unproductive of beneficial results as were the former, upon which only partial payments had been made by a portion of the subscribers. A contract for constructing the road was made with Messrs. Gilman and Carpenter in October, 1850. At the close of the year 1850, stock to the amount of $250,800 had been subscribed, of which $72,000 was payable in land damages, and $50,000 was taken by the contractors. At this period in the history of the corporation, with $138,800 of available cash subscription, of which three per cent. had been paid, the corporation applied to the State for aid by a loan to enable it to prosecute the enterprise it had assumed, and this application was continued without success until 1854, when the legislature passed the Act authorizing a loan of $2,000,000, upon conditions which are particularly set forth in the Loan Act, (see Appendix A and B,) which, modified by subsequent legislation, discloses the policy of the State in granting its assistance to the undertaking. It is proper to state, that at the time this loan was granted, there was no prospect of opening this line of travel by individual efforts, and the amount of the loan, taking into consideration the then assumed estimates of its probable cost, shows that the State assumed to defray the cost of an enterprise to the completion of which available individual means had proved inadequate. In 1855, a contract for the construction of the road and tunnel was made with E. W. Serrell. The capital stock of the corporation was fixed at $1,500,000. This contract was changed two or three times, and finally ended in one executed by H. Haupt and Henry Cartwright. For an account of these changes, and of the votes and transactions of the directors and the contractors, reference is made to Appendix A, where the same will be found in detail. Upon a careful examination of these votes and transactions, the Committee come to the conclusion that the financial embarrassments of the corporation from the year 1855, when the first contract with E. W. Serrell was made to the time of the suspension of the works under the last contract with H. Haupt & Co., are apparent. And it is also apparent that during the same time, the contractors assumed, to a very great extent, the control and responsibility of the enterprise. Under the first contract, and on the day of its acceptance, the direction of the engineering operations within the tunnel was left with the contractor; excepting measuring for estimates and the final acceptance of the work; and on his subscribing $600,000 to the capital stock, $800,000 (less the new subscriptions,) was added to the contract prices for the work.